


In Which They Both Said, "No."

by Ynnealay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, BAMF Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Plot Twists, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ynnealay/pseuds/Ynnealay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dean was broken and Sam could tell. To anyone observing from the outside – not that there was anyone to observe anymore – Dean had never looked happier, and that was how Sam knew he was broken." <br/>Sam and Dean stayed together until the very end of the world, but when they both said, "no," the angels failed and Lucifer's disease reined. Now all that's left is a zombie apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which They Both Said, "No."

**Author's Note:**

> In Which They Both Said, "No." (And not to drugs)

Dean was broken and Sam could tell. To anyone observing from the outside – not that there _was_ anyone to observe anymore – Dean had never looked happier, and that was how Sam knew he was broken.

Dean had been this way when he was going to Hell. The first time, when the fear was too much that he masked it with a smile and even he hadn’t known he was terrified until the final months.

Sam knew his brother was broken when out of the blue he started acting like the Dean Sam had known before their dad died, before the Sam’s death-visions, before Ruby, and before everything. The eldest Winchester’s character had leapt back a good five years. Suddenly all he cared about was beer and the open road – no weight on his shoulders.

It wasn’t like they were used to being pampered in five star hotels or having food available and ready. They lived on the road honestly – hunting, so Sam couldn’t be exactly sure why Dean had broken. He could think of a multitude of possible reasons, and none seemed more likely than the fact that, well.

They had failed to stop the apocalypse.

Cas was dead.

The Croatoan virus was spreading rapidly, and the angels weren’t intervening.

The earth was decimated.

* * *

 

 

_“You okay, Sammy?”_

_To be honest, Sam_ hadn’t _been okay the first few days. Dean had been okay, but Sam wasn’t. He was seated on his bed, legs slung over the side, ready to stand, but had just paused. He guessed he had been staring at the wall long enough to catch Dean’s attention,_

_“What? Uh… yeah.”_

_“You don’t_ look _okay.” Dean craned his neck around the back of the chair he was sitting in, away from the bright light of Sam’s laptop._

 _“I’m not then, Dean. What? Do you want to talk now? About our_ feelings _? Now? ‘Cause you never really struck me as the chick-flick moments type.”_

_Dean didn’t back down, “I was just asking.”_

_“We failed, Dean.” Sam emphasized, “You know this is the very definition of ‘apocalypse’ zombie or not?”_

_“We tried Sam.” It seemed to the younger Winchester that even his older brother, the man without true sin, didn’t believe what he was saying._

_The clock on the wall ticked incessantly with a time that would be incorrect as soon as the gears got rusty and stopped working. Sam figured it would be soon – after all, it wouldn’t take long before even this motel out in the middle of nowhere was overrun by the demonic disease victims._

_“This is my fault, Dean.” Sam said, “God, I could’ve tried harder.”_

_“Lucifer was gonna kill you – I’m just glad we’re both here in one piece.”_

_“You should have let him kill me. I_ don’t want to be here! _” his head whipped around, and perhaps he might have been Satan himself with how fast and venomously he glared at Dean. What was he even getting at? He didn’t even know anymore._

_Dean stared at him, and stood up, his steps were agonizingly slow, measured, and unlike him, “We’re both here, Sammy. We’ll be okay. I’m okay,” he said softly._

_“Well I’m not. Okay? I’m not.”_

* * *

 

_I’m okay_

The words echoed in Sam’s head. Dean was okay. He _said_ he was okay.

“Sam!” Dean shouted, coming back from scouting ahead, “The road’s clear as far as I can see!” He jogged up, smiling uncharacteristically bright, “Looks like we finally have some luck.”

What was lucky about it was the fact that Dean – stubborn as always and stubbornness fueled by his new vigor – refused to give up his car. Sam pretended he couldn’t care less – but in the past few months, the Impala that Dean had kept in perfect condition had been more of a home to Sam than the one house they ever had. Neither of them really wanted to go anywhere without it, so they stuck to roads, and only the ones clear enough to be traversed without difficulty.

“Any idea where this road leads?” Sam asked, leaning back against the hood.

“Probably another small town – like the ones we used to hunt in.” Dean raised his eyebrows, both of them remembering laptop lit nights and greasy fast food. “Man, I would _kill_ for a burger right about now.”

Sam chuckled, “Me too, dude.”

As Dean got closer, Sam pushed himself from the metal, “Can I drive?”

The older sibling twirled the key ring around his fingers making a jingling sound, “Driver picks the music,” he announced, “And I am _so_ not listening to your stupid country music all the way into town.”

“Dean!” Sam almost whined, like he was the pathetic kid-brother again.

“After you, _princess_.” Dean held the door open for Sam, who folded himself into the passenger seat.

“You are so immature.”

Dean paused, a rebuttal on his lips, but he swallowed instead, a melancholy look came over his eyes when he thought Sam was no longer looking. He was no doubt remembering the simpler times when they bickered as a simple backdrop to even simpler lives. The Impala rocked with Dean’s entrance, and Sam turned his head, trying to get a good look at his brother, who was staring at him too.

“Dean.”

“Mm-hm?”

“Are you okay?” Sam knew Dean wasn’t going to answer – no harm in asking again though, right?

The purr of the Impala’s engine was the non-reply that Sam received.

* * *

 

_“Sammy… c’mon.”_

_Sam rarely ever cried. Leastwise in front of Dean. The younger Winchester wasn’t even sure what had set him off this time. Maybe it was seeing yet another person turn from themselves into a snarling mess. Bobby. God, they had thought they would be safe there._

_In the bedroom that used to be Sam’s whenever they found themselves out of luck and crashing at Bobby’s, both of them sat huddled in the corner near the dresser. Dean’s arms encircled his little brother, wrapping him in a protective embrace._

_“Sammy… please, you’re scaring me.”_

_Sam looked up from his silent tears, not saying a word._

_“Dammit Sam,” Dean ground out, and Sam choked back an audible sob, “Damn this. This isn’t our fault; this wasn’t anything we could have stopped. We don’t fucking deserve this. You don’t fucking deserve this.”_

_Sam had all but ignored his brother, and eventually remembered falling asleep into tear-crusted eyelids._

* * *

 

It was funny how dramatically three months could change a relationship. If you asked Dean, he would say that neither of them was unstable. They were both okay now, both happy.

Sam broke into obvious pieces, Dean would crack like a dropped phone, pixels still lighting up brighter in contrast to the split glass.

The younger one knew that it would be easy to say that Dean had simply adapted to the apocalypse, and was perhaps happy that there were no more rules in life, but did a well-adjusted man do what Dean had done on the Fourteenth Day of the zombie apocalypse?

The car slowed.

Plastic-bag tumbleweed streets, broken graffiti-ed street lamps, water damaged THE END IS NEAR cardboard signs. Discounting the latter, this small town was a trademark of their used-to-be-hunting life. The town was empty, and Dean was sorely disappointed that the local diner seemed to be looted out of any salvageable pie.

Sam drew his pistol from the back pocket of his jeans and Dean opened the trunk, propping it open with a shotgun. He armed himself with one of the shotguns.

“Town looks quiet, Sammy,” Dean commented.

“Knowing our luck, it’s really the opposite,” Sam muttered, stance still for the most part relaxed.

The two noisily kicked in the door to the NV Community Radio station, looking for a place to spend the night that wasn’t the leather seats in the back of the Impala. It seemed that this little town didn’t even have a motel, which is what they had been betting on.

A sign advertising NEWS VARIETY COMMUNITY RADIO had ripped through its nail supports and fallen to the ground. Sam stepped over it.

“That was too loud, don’t you think?”

“If there’s any zombies in here, we’ll kill ‘em.” Dean announced brashly, “We’re living reckless now.” He looked away, but not before Sam caught his optimistic mask slip ever so slightly.

* * *

 

 

_Dean had a fucking gun in his mouth._

_On the Fourteenth Day since the apocalypse, opening eyes burned with old tears, Sam had found himself on his bed. He remembered vaguely crying himself to sleep in Dean’s arms. His older brother must have moved him after he had cried all the liquid out of his body._

_The house was quite, and Sam crept out of his room, somehow feeling lighter, happier. It must have been the fact that he spent all night crying. Everything looked a little bit brighter, like the horror had been pried away, floating just above reality like a layer of dried paint. Not even a clock ticked now, Sam’s bare feet tread the unpolished wood of Bobby’s hallway._

_He headed for Dean’s room._

_And found his brother with a gun in his mouth._

_A fucking gun in his mouth._

_“Dean,” Sam said cautiously, pausing in the doorframe, “Dean what the hell are you doing.” He rushed into the room, another demand already poised._

_Dean didn’t even acknowledge the frantic entrance Sam had made._

_“Put the gun down,” Sam said, “Please.”_

_The gun stayed put. Only when Sam leapt forward to pull the weapon from his mouth before Dean could pull the trigger did the black metal lower._

_“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean said._

_“Dean, what—?” Sam started, but his older brother pushed past him, shivering like it was cold, exiting the room._

_Dean had ignored any attempt Sam had made to talk to him for the next week._

_Neither of them spoke, and neither of them left their adopted father’s house, where his corpse was buried out back. It was somewhere in that week of silence, when Dean seemed to change, Sam realized._

* * *

 

Dean led with his gun, nudging open studio doors in the corridors of the station that used to output friendly neighborhood announcements.

Dean was down the other hallway, the one to the left. There were three areas in the NV Radio Station: The main room, which contained the recording booth and soundboard, and two hallways.

The first door had been clear, the second door was locked (Mental note: find the key to room 02), the third door…

It creaked open on its hinges and revealed an office, dark and disused. The stench of some dead thing issued from inside.

Was it an actual corpse… or one of those infected things? They hadn’t seen one in a few days, sticking to empty middle-of-nowhere highways where the only corpses to kill were stragglers already dying of hunger on the road

Fallen papers crunched under Dean’s boots, his gun stuck out in front of him. The stench of decay was getting worse as he journeyed towards the filing cabinet. A tenseness grew in the air around him, wonder what he would find when he rounded the corner.

Grey handles, locks and keys, scattered spreadsheets all filled dean’s vision, before he got a look behind the filing cabinet. It was… just a corpse.

A man about his age, rotting flesh and a gunshot to the head, lay in a puddle of bodily fluids. He would have been handsome in life, blond hair and a strong build. Tattoos raced up and down his arms. He was too busy examining in some morbid fascination the lines of ink, that he didn’t hear the rustling behind him.

The snarl before the thing hiding in the office jumped at him was the only warning he got.

* * *

 

_Sam rested his head on his arms, sitting at the kitchen table, eyes glancing around. He remembered playing some stupid chase-game with his brother in that corner, over there. He recalled helping Bobby sort books in the study, through that door._

_“Sammy.” Dean’s surprised voice floated from the doorframe. He guessed Dean had come looking for a drink, not planning on also being in his brother’s presence._

_“Are you talking to me now?” Sam asked, looking up. Dean couldn’t stop staring at him._

_“Sam, I…”_

_“What was that about, last week?” Sam demanded, for some stupid reason, out of cowardice of what, not directly mentioning the gun-mouth dynamic and Dean’s obvious suicide contemplation._

_“I was messed up Sam,” Dean said automatically, and now he looked joyful, sharp and young like he hadn’t been in years, “But… I’m good now. What’d you say we hit the road?”_

_“Dean… are you okay?”_

_Dean only smiled wider, “Never been better Sammy.”_

* * *

 

The zombie on top of Dean was a dark skinned man in a torn long coat. His hair was long and wild, matted with blood and evidence of other kills he must have done.

The Winchester’s hands fumbled to point the muzzle of the gun at the zombie’s face. His jaw clanked loosely, poisonous fluids leaking just to the side of Dean’s mouth. He was either gonna die today or turn into a zombie. Both were equally undesirable.

“Godammit!” Dean exclaimed, rolling out of the way. The zombie toppled over, losing its balance in a stumble-jerking movement before rushing at Dean again. He raised the tip of the gun and fired two shots into the thing’s head.

It fell over, landing beside the dead cabinet-man’s body. Blood mist settled over them both. Dean wiped his hands over his face, breathing heavily.

He hadn’t killed a zombie in forever, adrenaline refused to leave his body. His finger twitched over the trigger. Turning the gun over, Dean realized it was empty of shells.

“Dean! You okay?” Sam ran into the room.

“Sam! Look out!”

The radio station must have been infested. Damn. The hall was rushing with them, and one of them tackled Sam to the ground, leaping into the room. Dean thrust a hand into his pocket, realizing he had no more normal shells, only a handful of rock-salt loaded ones. Screw it, they were better than nothing.

The rock-salt shells clicked into place, and no sooner than that the first one blasted out the end of the gun, knocking back the first zombie, a short woman with a bob cut. More were coming, and luckily it seemed that rock salt stunned them well enough to advance down the hallway.

Somewhere in the room a bookshelf collapsed, comically squishing a group of zombies attacking from behind.

“Dean! We have to get out of here!” Sam exclaimed.

A twitch of movement caught Dean’s eyes and he whipped around, firing rock salt into it. His finger was pressed against the engaged trigger, the shell already launched at its target, before Dean realized he had aimed close range at Sam.

* * *

 

_Sam couldn’t remember from where this memory was. It was only dark and sound, wet cheeks and arms moving him to the bed._

_“I’m sorry Sammy. You don’t deserve this.”_

_A pause. A sigh._

_“God… I don’t even know what to say to you. And I don’t…”_

_It was Dean’s voice. Was he crying?_

_“Don’t worry Sam, we’ll always have each other.”_

_Then there was noise, so much noise. It was an explosion – a gunshot?_

* * *

 

“ _Dean_!” Sam’s eyes snapped open, feeling the memory of pain – the rock salt as it scattered over him.

“Sammy,” Dean said. They were in the Impala, driving down some road. Dean was up front, Sam had woken up in the backseat. He touched his face, no damage. He would have thought there would at least be bruises from getting shot with rock salt.

“Ugh… oh god.” Sam tried to sit up, but felt weary, faint, “What happened?”

“I shot you on accident. Sorry, Sammy.” Something was different about Dean’s tone it was darker, harsher. When Sam realized it, he felt his brain leap when the information clicked. Dean was back to his old self – that is to say the one that wasn’t falsely happy all the time, “I got out of there – the whole town was wrecked. Zombies at every corner.”

“Good thing we’re hunters then,” Sam said.

“Yeah.”

Sam remembered this. The time Dean was going to Hell, he had been happy as can be until the final months, when he saw it coming. Then he sobered up, going back to his old self. What was Dean dreading this time?

“How long was I out?”

“You know I wasn’t even surprised when my shot hit you?” Dean didn’t answer.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like every fucking time I’m supposed to shoot you or something.” Dean pulled over the car and stopped it overlooking a forest on the side of the highway.

“Dean…?”

“And you just keep coming back!” Dean paused and turned to get a good look at his brother, “I didn’t even bring your goddamn body back to car: there wasn’t one!” Sam supposed out of all the bodies in the world, he was the most _goddamned,_ but Dean still wasn’t making any sense.

Sam swallowed and sat up, “What are you talking about, man?”

“And then you appear out of fucking _nowhere_ in the backseat!” Dean had a hardened look on his face, something dark, darker than normal for even him. Sam eyed him warily. “I’m just crazy. That’s it, I’m probably just bat-shit fucking loopy!”

“Dean… what are you—”

“ _You’re dead!”_ Dean exclaimed, hitting the black leather of his car and whipping around, “ _I killed you, Sam!_ I—” Dean’s voice broke off into an uncharacteristic sob, “I _killed_ you, Sammy.”

The position of the older Winchester was almost like a poised spider, crawling through the gap between the passenger and driver seat. Threateningly, he advanced on his ‘dead’ brother.

“I’m not dead, Dean,” Sam said, only because it was one of the only things he was sure about. The whole of reality what slipping from under his fingers, and he grasped onto something he thought he knew.

“That night at Bobby’s house,” Dean began, “You remember, you had to pop a cap into his skull. You had a fucking _breakdown_ , Sammy.”

Sam nodded. He remembered.

“Well let me tell you, Sam, if anyone can fuck me up to Hell, it’s you.” Dean clenched his fist, looking Sam straight in the eyes. Sam could tell Dean was trying not to scream, or cry. “I started worrying you’d kill yourself, Sammy, and with all the _options_ in the trunk outside I started thinking _hey, it’d be way too easy_. Then I got scared, you know?”

Sam could only swallow numbly, and nod for Dean to continue. He could tell Dean was _this close_ to breaking, to completely, irreversibly crumbling to a state of non-fixability.

“I was _paranoid_ that I’d walk into the next room and find you with your brains on the wall and a ’45 in your mouth. But then, _hey, it wouldn’t be too bad_ , I thought. ‘Cause you hadn’t made any deals, so your soul was still heaven-bound.”

“Dean, where is this going?”

“I—” and this is where Dean finally broke down and squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that began, “I didn’t want to live in the fucking apocalypse, didn’t want you to have to. So I went into your room.”

Dean took out his shotgun, which had been hiding under one of the seats, and aimed it directly at Sam’s head. Dean, Sam was sure, had gone insane.

“I aimed my pistol at your head, Sammy. Do you remember what I said?” Dean paused, a killer’s look in his eyes that chilled Sam, “I said, ‘ _Don’t worry, we’ll always have each other’_ and then I pulled the damn trigger.”

Yes… _no!_ Sam _did_ remember those words, in the dark. He remembered the explosion afterwards…

“You know, I sat for an hour that morning with a gun in my mouth. But I couldn’t do it. I just sat around Bobby’s house and suddenly, you’re in the kitchen. I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew you weren’t there – but I decided to talk to you, in my imagination, because it’s just _so damn difficult_ to remember that I _shot you_ because I was too scared!”

Dean dropped the gun, his hands shaking.

“Dean…” Sam reached forward, he was too big for this car.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” Dean threatened.

“Or you’ll what, Dean?” Sam supposed everyone had to have a mental breakdown at some point in the apocalypse, and so what if Deans story made sense? Right now, Sam had to take care of his big brother. He reached forward and touched Dean’s shoulder. Dean flinched.

“I said—”

“But you felt that, right?” Sam said, “So I’m not dead, okay? You felt that.”

“I felt… cold.” Dean looked up at Sam with something new in his eyes. Fear and hope at the same time. “Sam, you’re so cold.”

“Dean?”

Dean swallowed heavily, “Sam, I killed you. I wish to Hell I didn’t, but I did. I know I did, but…”

“Dean, there is no way I’m dead!” Sam said, trying to prove it, “I can think for myself, I can touch, I can move things…”

“…sometimes.” Dean, with a hunter’s mastery, unloaded a salt round from the shotgun and held it out. “Take this,” he said, holding raw salt out to his brother. Sam frowned, and then hesitantly stuck his finger out to touch it. It stung, like putting his finger into tiny shards of broken glass.

“Ah!” Sam exclaimed.

“The rock salt, Sam…” Dean said hollowly, “I killed you.”

“But I’m…” They were both thinking the same thing. Sam wasn’t alive. That much was certain. Yet, he could think, he could touch, sometimes even move, and he was a stubborn sonofabitch who had refused his date with his reaper. Being a spirit would definitely bring Sam an advantage. He and Dean actually _smiled_ at each other.

“A spirit,” Dean said, “You better not be a vengeful one.”

“Not yet,” Sam laughed, “So I guess this means I can’t drive?”

Dean backed up, staring at Sam in disbelief, but then smirked. “No way I’m letting a freakin’ ghost drive my car, Sam.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

Dean climbed up into the driver’s seat. Sam was stunned that he was dead, but considering the fact that he was untouchable by zombies and still with his brother, he was pretty optimistic.

“I can’t believe you shot me, Jerk,” Sam said as Dean started the engine.

“Shut up,” Dean said, “Bitch.”

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a short-story assignment in English class, then I changed the names and some of the details and handed it in. I decided I would post the original fanfiction.  
> Just for the curious, they were both women (Ruby Jones and Alexis "Lexi" Jones) and they were paranormal filmmakers, like the ghostfacers. The Impala was red, and their dad had died of cancer.
> 
> Please leave a comment!


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